Page 10 - bne_July 2024_20240709

10 I Companies & Markets bne July 2024
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto with his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov. / bne IntelliNews
energy supply, this development ensures a much more stable and secure energy supply."
Shah Deniz, operated by BP, is one of the world's largest deepwater natural gas fields with annual production of 29bn cubic metres. The 5% stake would translate into an annual supply of 1.5 bcm of natural gas for Hungary.
The biggest investment in MVM's history will be covered from the company's own resources and will not burden the budget, Hungarian Energy Minister Csaba Lantos said. The agreement sets production volumes for stakeholders until 2050 and paves the way for production at new fields, too, he added.
In an announcement posted on the website of the Budapest Stock Exchange, MVM Group said it had agreed to acquire a 5%
stake in the production sharing agreement for the Shah Deniz field and a 4% stake in Azerbaijan Gas Supply Company, the special purpose vehicle for the sale of the gas from the field.
Under an earlier agreement, Hungary is getting 50mn cubic metres of Azeri gas this year. Hungary is also partnering with Azerbaijan, Georgia and Romania on a project to bring energy from the Caucasus to Europe through a submarine cable.
The Southern Gas Corridor project aims to increase and diversify European energy supply by bringing gas resources from the Caspian Sea to markets in Europe.
Hungarian oil and gas company MOL was the third-biggest stakeholder in the largest offshore oil field in Azerbaijan and the value of its investments in the country had reached $2bn. Last year, MOL's production at the field was over 5mn barrels, 15% of the group-level total.
Other stakeholders in the Shah Deniz field are BP (29.99%), Lukoil (19.99%), TPAO (19%) and NICO (10%). BP is the field's operator.
The transaction aligns with EU diversification efforts, national energy strategy and MVM's growth strategy, the company said.
MVM Group is the second-largest company in Hungary and is in the top five in the region. It is present in 23 countries with more than 120 member companies, employing more than 18,000 people. It booked HUF5.1 trillion (€13bn) revenue last year, down from HUF7.6 trillion in 2022, but profits surged to HUF369bn from HUF73bn in the same period.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov’s appearance in Kyrgyzstan sparks hopes of ski resort investment
bne IntelliNews
Speculation that Russian billionaire Telegram founder Pavel Durov will invest in Kyrgyzstan’s initiative to create Central Asia’s largest ski resort – Three Peaks, to be designed by Societe Des Trois Vallees (S3V), the operator of the elite Courchevel ski resort in France – has been triggered by local reports that the entrepreneur arrived in the country’s mountainous Issyk-Kul region at the end of last week.
After social media users in Issyk-Kul reported encounters with the often elusive businessman – who fled Russia in 2013, saying he was under pressure from the Kremlin to share personal data of Ukrainian pro-democracy protesters – suggestions quickly mounted that his visit to Kyrgyzstan was linked with the creation of the “Kyrgyz Courchevel” resort in the mountains of Issyk-Kul.
www.bne.eu
Durov, founder of both the Telegram messenger service
and social network VKontakte, with a fortune estimated at $15.5bn by Forbes, recently posted on social media that he planned to visit Central Asia, although he made no mention of involvement in Three Peaks.
He said: "I keep working, meeting with our [social network] users from unusual places. This summer I decided to visit Central Asia to see life there and study how people use Telegram and what are their digital needs."
A user of social media platform X, wrote that her mother encountered Durov in Petroglyphs Park in Cholpon-Ata. Durov was described by another social media user as in the company of Russian blogger Gasan Guseinov, who